Ontario’s coal phase out

Phasing out the use of coal fired electricity in Ontario was an enormous achievement, the greenhouse gas reduction equivalent of taking 7 million cars off the road. The OCAA fought relentlessly for more than 15 years to end coal use in Ontario. It’s advocacy led to an all-party agreement that coal had to go in Ontario as early as 2000. But it took another decade of effort to ensure that coal use was indeed ended in Ontario, making this province the first jurisdiction in the world to end coal fired electricity generation for health and environmental reasons. This section recaps some of our efforts to end coal use.

Ending the use of coal-fired electricity was a massive climate achievement -- the equivalent of taking seven million cars off the road. This report looks at how this remarkable success was achieved and the lessons learned from one of the biggest environmental success stories in recent times.
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This report outlines how an early shut down of dirty coal plants and phasing out the expensive and aging Pickering Nuclear Station, could save Ontario more than a billion dollars on its annual electricity bill.
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In 1998 and 2001, OCAA hired energy analyst Steven Diener to analyze the cost of replacing coal-fired electricity generating units with cleaner natural gas units. These two studies demonstrated that the replacement costs were far less than the health costs caused by burning coal.
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About the OCAA

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA), established in 1997, successfully led the campaign to phase out the use of dirty coal power in Ontario. We are now working to move our province to a 100% renewable electricity system.